Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson

Snyder (Slavery in Indian Country), associate professor of history at Indiana University, opens the door on a fascinating, yet largely unknown episode in American history as she renders in fine detail the early 19th-century experimental interracial community in central Kentucky called Great Crossings, home to Choctaw Academy. The school, opened in the 1820s and shuttered in 1848, was molded by Richard Mentor Johnson, a former Indian fighter, prominent Kentucky politician, and vice president under Martin van Buren. Johnson and his enslaved African-American concubine, Julia Chinn, envisioned an “empire of liberty” that would link westward expansion with emancipation by sending freed slaves west to settle land there. Political motives blended with personal and religious ones. Chinn had been affected by the Second Great Awakening’s emphasis on progress, and both she and Johnson wanted a nurturing place to raise and educate their two daughters. The sections on Johnson and Chinn’s family life are particularly intriguing. Great Crossings became a truly multiracial community once the Choctaw Academy opened, attracting young Native American men determined to receive an academically rigorous education. There they interacted with white instructors and community leaders as well as enslaved African-Americans, resulting in both trouble and romance. This is a well-researched, engagingly written, and remarkable work of scholarship. Illus. (Mar.)